The Indian War Poet Seminar

The Indian War Poet?

the relationship between Nobel prize winner Rabindranath Tagore and the British First World War poets (for AS / A2 students)

This seminar was researched and taught by Harriet Truscott, Cambridge University.

Rabindranath Tagore was born and brought up in India, and during the course of his long life wrote plays, poems and novels,
set up a school, an agricultural improvement project, and toured the world giving lectures. He was awarded the Nobel Prize
for literature in 1913, and was knighted by the Queen, before renouncing his title due to his changing views on the presence
of the British in India.

To recreate this online seminar for yourself, begin by reading the poem, ‘Summer’s Pioneers’. Read it
slowly and think about what it means. Are there parts of the poem you find
particularly interesting? Are there parts which you find very difficult to understand? How do you think
it relates to other war poetry that you have read, by poets like Wilfred Owen, for example?

Read this letter to Tagore from Susan Owen, Wilfred Owen’s mother. How do you think that Tagore’s poetry relates to the war
poetry that you have read in the past?

Complete resource lists

‘Summer’s Pioneers’, Rabindranath Tagore

a letter to Tagore from Susan Owen